Amazida was one of the fortunate ones who instead ended up at Sunshine Farms in Central Square. Other horses, race horses in particular, are not so fortunate. The ASPCA estimates more than 150,000 of them are shipped across the border each year to Mexico and Canada where they are slaughtered for their meat.

"It's considered a delicacy in Japan and France a lot of those European countries, so that is where the money comes in and unfortunately our horses suffer for that," says Mary Minkoff from Sunshine Horses

There is legislation that would ban the transport of horses internationally for slaughter, but getting that legislation passed through Congress has been difficult. Sunshine Horses is one of several Central New York groups pushing for Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption in the U.S. and and ban their export abroad for that purpose.